Mobile phone sales rise almost 6% in first quarter

Mobile phones sales in Taiwan jumped almost 6 percent at an annual rate during the January-March quarter on seasonal factors, market researcher International Data Corp said in a report released yesterday.

"The traditional Lunar New Year buying spree helped push handset sales higher in the Taiwanese market" IDC analyst Annie Yang (楊惠安), based in Taipei, said in the report.

Quarterly growth

But, compared with the fourth quarter of last year, first-quarter sales fell short of IDC's expectations, Yang said, without giving comparative figures.

Handset sales expanded merely 2.6 percent quarter-on-quarter to 1.82 million units in the first three months of the year, according to IDC.

Yang blamed rising credit card debt for the weaker-than-expected growth, as consumers held off purchasing consumer electronics gadgets such as handsets.

IDC said it was worth noting that third-generation (3G) phones accounted for more than 5 percent of the overall 1.82 million units sold for the first time since the launch last June, because local mobile operators paid high subsidies to spur demand.

Despite the rapid growth, 3G phones would not catch up to the market position of general package radio service (GPRS) phones -- also called 2.5G -- in the second half of next year, Yang said.

GPRS phones accounted for more than 70 percent of total handset sales last quarter, IDC said.

"Most consumers are taking a wait-and-see attitude because of fewer 3G phones on the market to select from and high price tags," Yang said.

Yang said the 3G phone market would boom only if mobile carriers provided better content and more mobile phones.

The IDC report also provided an analysis of the major mobile phone vendors in the domestic market.

The world's major mobile phone brands Nokia Ojy, Motorola Inc and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Ltd accounted for a combined 63 percent share of the Taiwanese handset market last quarter.

Domestic brands

Sales of the three brands jumped 19 percent year on year, Yang said, without giving details.

By contrast, local brands, including BenQ Corp (明基), Inventec Appliances Corp (英華達) -- which sells phones under OKWAP brand -- and Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), lost ground to foreign vendors, taking only a 15 percent share of the market, down from a 25 percent to 30 percent share at their height, she said.

Local companies suffered a 25 percent decline in handset sales in the first quarter from a year ago, according to IDC.